


Where They Rejoice to Take You In

by facetofcathy



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-08
Updated: 2010-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-13 03:19:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facetofcathy/pseuds/facetofcathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-series wish-fulfillment fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where They Rejoice to Take You In

**Author's Note:**

> Comment fic from [Take a sad song and make it better fest](http://oxoniensis.dreamwidth.org/6222.html)

It had been an interplanetary game of dominoes. Find a man a supply of power units that would fit his water purification unit, and he would give you a introduction to a man who wanted a source of emerald dye. Find the dye, and the man would take you to a woman who would hire you as a guard on trip after trip to planet after planet and then pay you with a reference to a man who worked for an alliance. He would take you to the Genii if you would only show him the ruins of Hoff. The Genii turn out to be a rebel group, but they are soon enough captured by the real thing, and a familiar face smiles at you and claps you on the shoulder and gives you breakfast. He asks for nothing in return, and for the first time you think you might make it.

The gate ripples blue and your Genii helper smiles and says it will be okay, and it takes time, but the word comes--you may step through. It has been so very long, and the urge to run, to retreat into the bliss of ignorance pulls at you, but you have forsaken bliss. You will go and see who is alive and who is dead.

______________

The smell hits him first, and he knows that this is some other planet, some other sea on which the city sits, but the salt and metal tang of the city is unchanged. The light registers next, soft and diffuse, but still bright and unreal, no flicker of flame or glow of filament bulbs. He sees them, his people, and he laughs because he had never been quite one of them before, but now they are the closest thing to his own kind in the galaxy, and he hears her first, Teyla, and he sees her run to him, with what is certainly a baby in her arms, and she breaths his name, "Aiden, Aiden," as she sets her forehead to his, and the baby screams a strident, angry horrible noise, but he is home and it is like music.

Later he will see John need the support of a door frame to keep from falling at just the sight of him, and Rodney will be the first to embrace him, and Ronon will watch his steady hands with a look of approval, but for now, Teyla and her hard grip on his shoulder is enough.


End file.
